Top Dog and Biker Half shorts
by Doghead Thirteen
Summary: Assorted shorts from the Top Dog universe. Most of these are ideas I've had that I can't think of where to go with next; others are background-setting for things that'll happen elsewhere. Some stuff I've got written can't be posted yet due to spoilers.
1. 1: Fear and Loathing

Welcome to the Top Dog Shorts!

These are intended to form a series of short (or very short) snapshots of events and details from character backgrounds within the Top Dog continuity.

This first one is a glimpse of the days when Genma and Soun were travelling around the galaxy together. It's also a homage of sorts…

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**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

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We were about half an hour out of New Tasmania and just getting onto the final fringes of the desert when the drugs started to kick in.

Our destination was the Grand Conclave of Clans, this year being held in New Tasmania. Why we'd decided to raid the Jurai City narc squad's evidence locker before departure, I have no idea, but I think it's because of the peyote we did up at the Stones gig the day before. After we'd stuffed Genma's dropship nose down in a sand dune, we'd been lucky enough to locate a convoy of sandside raiders, and even luckier to manage to steal a superconvoy from said raiders without turning up dead. The vehicle – seven hundred tons of New Australian chrome and steel mounted on a seemingly-infinite number of knobbly wheels – was the sort of monstrosity you only normally read about, partly because most people have the sense to not engage in long distance trucking in the New Australian outback.

We had five bags of the finest Norkdondoo mlerp. A gram of cocaine. Seventy-eight pellets of afterburner gum. A litre of undiluted wolfsbane potion. Two grams of ketracel-white. Half a kilo of wormwood paste. Two ounces of Deladarian magic mushrooms. Six grams of speed. Three bags of peyote. A whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers – also a case of Fosters, half a litre of Ukrainian moonshine, a quart of kill-O-max, a gallon of industrial-strength absinthe, a salt shaker half full of burn-cycle, ten tabs of blowback, a litre of brandy, half a case of pan-galactic gargle blasters and five sheets of high-power water acid.

The only part of it that really worried me was the wolfsbane potion.

Essential for the sanity and safety of those unfortunate few Amerai born with tidal phasic rage disorder, in it's undiluted form it is one of the most powerful drugs known to wolf; there are few things as helplessly depraved, incoherent, hyperactive and idiotic as a werewolf on undiluted wolfsbane potion; the only way to stay even halfway functional is to do up a whole load of afterburner gum and spend the next few hours in a mindless sort of slobbering frenzy; it was only a matter of time before we got into that filthy stuff.

And, yup, there it was, time for a long luxurious pull at the 'bane.

In the passenger seat of our Holden superconvoy, my training partner – Genma Saotome, a werebear bike mechanic of great girth, great humour and equally great capacity for intoxicants – was spreading wormwood puree on his chest for no apparent reason; an unpleasant sight at the best of times, and when you're on a cocktail of acid, absinthe, gargle-blaster, 'bane and afterburner, a beergut that size is really not something you want to see.

One moment I was just starting to get into the rhythm of driving that bloody monster, the next the sky was chock full of mopeds ridden by cackling green imps, swooping and diving and gibbering, and a voice was screaming, "Dana's Love, what's with all those fucking hair-dryers?"

Genma lolled his head over to look at me.

"I think I'd better drive, Tendo." He said.

I went to point out the mopeds; Genma pulled me into the centre seat and climbed over into the driver's seat, his leather-clad butt getting dangerously close to my nose.

"Overweight men shouldn't wear skin-tight leather." I said.

Genma chuckled, dropped into the driver's seat and stood on the gas. I got another pellet of afterburner and started chewing. There was some sort of fucked-up be-bop dross on the radio; Genma did of course start singing along to it.

"One shot over the line, Sweet Dana, one shot over the line…"

One shot over the line? Just wait till the poor bastard sees those goddamn mopeds…

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**Author's Note:**

Anyone who didn't get the Hunter S Thompson references gets a free kick up the bum. I may continue this at a later date; I don't know.

Events during Genma and Soun's 'trip' in New Tasmania include the giant curry explosion, a turd the size of a barn, time travelling mopeds, Thai hookers and a very confused leprechaun. I haven't fully thought them out, but I know they were weird and disjointed.

General revision 18/April/07, improvements to formatting.

Further general revision 25/April/07, more improvements to formatting.


	2. 2: A Few Good Men

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

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Over the millennia of Imperial service since his birth amid the red sands of Renahara and his first halting steps into the ranks of the Legio Cybernetica, he had fought on thousands of worlds, wielding ten generations of Imperial firepower in the names of six Queens of Renahara and three Empresses. He had commanded everything from the mightiest warships to small units of highly trained fighting men, from the ancient beasts of steel that comprised the Titan Legions to the countless regiments of the Imperial Guard; even Her finest, the Imperial Space Marines, had battled under his command as the centuries passed. The warriors of ten galaxies knew him as the finest commander in Her service; the commanders of those galaxies knew him as a tactician without peer, and to a select few – the Empress herself and her closest companions – he was an unswervingly loyal soldier, companion, guardian and friend.

His name was Typhon Gillearamar, Lord Admiral of the Imperial Combined Armed Forces, the first Imperial Warmaster named in no less than fifty thousand years, and a rock-hard, scar-faced, wily, cynical old bastard.

His short but powerful hands rested lightly on the ship's controls as he guided it into a parabolic course.

"How do you rate our chances, sir?" the white-haired young man who was stood behind him asked.

"Not good." Typhon said. "Some of the blast slipped through and destroyed our drive and communications systems, and we are currently approximately two hundred thousand years from home at sublight velocities." He grinned wryly at the other two – young, handsome Major Artemis Strauss and delicate beauty Specialist Luna Hellicara. "Sorry, kids; we're in for the long haul."

"What are we going to do?" Luna asked as Typhon locked the course into the destroyer's damaged helm.

"The lifeboats have stasis capsules." He stated. "I've programmed them to launch us on a re-entry parabola when we near the homeworld. Get ready for the longest night of your life, lass."

Luna nodded, tears escaping from her eyes. The poor girl wasn't trained for this; she was a telemetry specialist from the home system's Oort cloud colonies, not a soldier.

"I'm sorry." Typhon said. "Not for bringing you here, kid; I'm sorry I didn't do a better job back there. We all heard Her final transmission; the Empire is no longer there, and if the New Australians are to be believed, by the time we find our way home it will be remembered only in the form of a twisted mockery I'm damn certain is ruled by the Dark Gods. Assemble everyone aboard, Major. I'll be addressing them in the rec deck in twenty minutes, then it'll be everyone into the lifepods. We're going to sleep away two hundred thousand years."

"Sir!" Artemis said, saluted, turned crisply with the regulation stomp of his right foot, and quick-marched off the destroyer's bridge.

Typhon watched the stars for a long moment.

"It is said," he said, "That a general of the Roman Empire once, watching the city of his foes burn, said, 'And some day Rome'. Yet it is a foul taste for a man's throat, having seen Rome burn. We failed, Luna. Hellmaster take it! I will not wrongfully apportion blame; it was I who commanded the final defence of the homeworld. _**I**_failed. Our empress sacrificed herself in a pyrrhic victory. You snatched myself, your young gentlemen, and his soldiers, from the maw of Hell itself."

"I muffed it." Luna said.

"Folded the drive clean out the ship." Typhon said with a nod. "But even still you got the job done, girl. Have you any idea how long ago it was that I was initiated into the secrets of the Ordo Cybernetica?"

"No." she said, thrown off by this abrupt change of track.

"Seven thousand years ago. I earned the rank of Grand Engineer five centuries ago. I know all fifty Rituals of the Machine-God. I know the ten secret names of the Great Engines. I know the deepest secrets of the Tech-Priests, Luna. And I'd be bloody fucked if I tried to plot a fold on an unfamiliar console without time for calculations or clear telemetry, I'd be lucky just to rip the ship's drive bay out; I'd probably tear her spine in two." Typhon smiled sadly at her. "There's a saying, Luna. My mother was fond of it; ain't no point crying over spilt milk. After all we've lost today, I'm glad to be walking away with my life and soul intact."

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Twenty minutes later, the men were assembled, though admittedly not all of them were men. There was Artemis's command, two platoons of Guardsmen from the Cadia sector, tough landwarriors kitted out in klaster body armour and armed with high-specification 35-cal particle rifles. There was a battle squad of Sororitas, the female guardians of the Imperial faith, their black powered body armour emblazoned with seals of purity. Typhon knew their Mother Superior personally; Mother Anaria was another old Martian warrior. A pair of ordained tech-priests and their servitors, and an Ordo Mystica mage, calm and cool in his black greatcoat as he stood a conspicuous distance from the commissar who oversaw the Guardsmen.

And, of course, a number of Her finest, the Imperial Space Marines, from the Space Wolves chapter harking from far-off Fenris. Barbaric they might be, but these men were the finest warriors in known space, and a full company stood arrayed on the deckplates behind the other loyal Imperial servants who awaited Typhon's words. Wolf Lord Egil Thunderwolf stood, brooding to himself, almost engulfed within the hulking shell of his AV-20X3 Terminator super power armour, the massive shape of his power gauntlet resting on the hilt of his blastersword. Arrayed around him were the Wolf Guard, the company's finest warriors, half of them likewise kitted out in Terminator suits and one wearing (or maybe that should be driving) an AV-20X7 Cyclone walkertank. Six Grey Hunter packs kitted out in powered carapace suits and toting a mix of MV2 boltguns and assorted close-range weaponry, three Blood Claw packs armed with almost pure close-combat equipment and one pack mounted on speederbikes, two of Long Fangs with their assorted heavy firepower, and a pack of Wolf Scouts with speederbikes rounded out the Great Company. Among their numbers were two Wolf Priests, three Rune Priests, and four Iron Priests; these specialists provided medical, mystical and technical support.

But, stood silent and unmoving behind Wolf Lord Egil, was the man Typhon was most grateful to see, for all that his appearance was less than prepossessing. He was a full conversion cyborg, and the most awesome Her scientists could create; his few remaining biological components were ensconced within the foot-thick laminated battle armour of an ACDM-4211 Dreadnaught heavy assault walkertank cyborg body, kitted out with enough firepower to take on a small army by himself; Bjarnil Firefist, one of the oldest Imperial warriors in the universe, and probably now _the_ oldest.

The troops had other vehicles than Bjarnil's body; the speederbikes used by the scouts and Blood Claws, varied APC's and IFV's, and a pair of Leman Russ main battle tanks that served as the heaviest weaponry under Artemis's command; all these were stowed in the destroyer's vehicle bay.

Typhon finally began to speak.

"The worst has come to pass." He said. "We have failed. I have failed. The Empire is no more. Our Empress is but dust on the solar wind."

"Is this true, Lord Admiral?" Commissar Dannar asked. Typhon nodded; the commissar's face fell.

"Then all is lost." Bjarnil stated.

Typhon raised his head.

"No, old friend. All is _not_ lost. Ten minutes ago, Her Majesty Setsuna Meiuu, Queen of the Outer Cloud Colonies and Senshei of Time, briefly contacted me. Our Empress is dead, but She has cast a legacy into the streams of time. The dread beast Metal'la was not slain by Her final attack; it was merely gravely wounded and cast into a place outside of time and space."

"A parasite reality?" Rune Priest Kolbjorn asked. Typhon shrugged.

"I have no idea." He said. "It is your job to tell me; yours and that of the other men of magic within this force. We have a mission, my friends. We were spared in the dread beast's throes of destruction for a reason; Her heir yet survives in some intangible form. The Crown Princess's soul was cast loose in time, and it will settle in the time when she is most needed, along with those of the Senshei who died protecting her."

He gathered himself, wept a silent tear for the girl turned Empress whom he had virtually raised himself, and continued.

"The Empress is dead. Long live the Empress. We are the only remaining loyal Imperial servants. We are all that She has left, ladies and gentlemen. The Traitor Legions still stand; our duty is clear. For the love of all that is good and pure and noble in this universe, _we cannot fail Her now_. Tonight we shall sleep for the longest night of our lives; we shall sleep for two hundred long millennia, and in the morning we will bring Her will to another generation."

He came to stiff attention, and saluted the forces under his command.

For tomorrow is a bright new day…

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**Author's Note**

I decided to take the Silver Millennium from Sailor Moon, the Empire from Star Wars, and the Imperium from Warhammer 40,000, and blend them into one. The result is a bit of a pig but a lot of fun. Yes, I just unified the Negaverse and the Chaos Marines. Be afraid. Be very afraid…

And yes, Space Wolves + Amerai something that sounds like fun.

This will be important (and make sense) later. For now, it's just a glimpse of what the Silver Millennium was actually like.

Rune Priest Kolbjorn is named after a friend's father, one Kolbjorn Borseth, a real nice guy and funny beardy Scandinavian bloke.

Enjoy,

Doghead Out.


	3. 3: For Honour and Vengeance

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

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I am a Talon Alpha in Her Radiant Majesty's Armed Forces; I have the honour of leading a talon in Her Radiant Majesty's First Legion, the finest body of warriors in the entire galaxy. Today, we are on leave; I invited my troops to join me here in the mountains for a quiet get-together. It is a beautiful day up here above the clouds where the air is thin; the sun streaks down on my mountain hideaway, lifting crystal glare from the snow and making this place look like a magazine photograph.

You may wonder why I have chosen to invite my talon to this, my most private of places. The answer is relatively simple.

To be truly effective, a team must function as one organism, each element acting as a part of the whole. Group get-togethers like this allow me and my talon to get to know one another in an informal setting. The better I know them, the better the team can function. The better they know me, the less liable they are to hesitate to follow my orders. These informal gatherings make us a better team; it is no mistake that I am regarded as one of Her Radiant Majesty's finest talon leaders. I do after all know exactly what I am doing.

My team are an eclectic bunch. There are few armed forces that would permit a group of warriors to behave like my talon; that is a part of why the First Legion is the best. We do not crap around polishing webbing and making boots gleam; we train to fight. We are warriors, not peacocks. We are a group of men and women ready and able to kill any enemy for Queen and homeworld, and we are the best there is.

My first marksman, Landwarrior First Class T'rael'aisha K'ragath'tarl. He's from a colony world on the fringes of the Thousand Kingdoms. That world should probably not have been colonised due to the size, variety, frequency and ferocity of it's native wildlife, but that means it produces the finest sniper-scout warriors I have ever seen. T'rael'aisha is a tall, slender man with fur as dark as midnight, a thin face and a hideous scar across his back from shoulder to tail. He is a deadeye shot, and carries our talon's Mentler AV-DRKS anti-material gravity railgun, the galaxy's most powerful man-portable weapon. It is his duty to find a position overseeing the enemy, and warn us of their positions and actions while providing anti-armour fire with that mighty rifle.

T'rael'aisha has the best sense of humour in the talon.

My second marksman, Landwarrior First Class Reiana Rialia R'hara'tath. She is my kithaine'rel – a sister of the same birthing as myself, and I trust her absolutely. She is taller than our father, has sandy brown fur just the same as mine, and shares my heavy, powerful frame; being a woman she is somewhat smaller than me, but that is like saying deep space tends to be kind of empty. I am over nine Earther feet tall; few are the people who can truthfully claim to be larger than me. She carries one of the versatile Mentler A-DRK gravity railguns, fitted with a long-ranged telescopic sight and an underslung GX21 rocket launcher. This compact and lethal combination is similar to that I carry myself, but my deadly sister's rifle is fitted with a longer barrel, enhancing it's accurate range and allowing it to accelerate it's projectiles almost a full Mach higher than the basic model. It is her duty to cover T'rael'aisha's back and, when necessary, provide a second spotting angle.

Reiana is like a finely-made duelling pistol; as deadly as she is beautiful.

My support gunner, Landwarrior First Class G'ral'taraka K'tarag'jal. He is from the most sacred lands in the Thousand Kingdoms, a true son of the Holy Mountains, and he is almost as large as myself, thanks in part to the thousands of crowns worth of biocybernetic augmentation within his body. Many assume a man of his size will be slow; G'ral'taraka loves being underestimated like that. He has orange-brown fur striped in black, and has reflexes like a whiplash; I have seen him snatch a crossbow bolt out of the air. He is also almost as strong as I; I have seen him crumple an engine block in his hands. He carries our AM-DRKF squad automatic weapon. It is no mistake that the AM-DRKF is used as a vehicle-mounted anti-aircraft weapon by some foreign militaries; it has a fire rate of two thousand rounds per minute, and each of those rounds has the power of a shot from my battle rifle. It is his duty to provide close-ranged fire support to the entire team, a role he fulfils with excellence. Two years before joining my team, G'ral'taraka won the Order of the Sun, the Thousand Kingdom's highest award for valour in battle, when he single-handedly held back an enemy force estimated at brigade-strength during the evacuation of Ranleth.

G'ral'taraka is one of the bravest men I have ever met, and that is saying a lot.

My point man, Landwarrior First Class Jason Yee, our only non-Kenti. Jason is the son of a New Australian expatriate couple living in downtown R'harash'gai't'rath, and he joined the military to prove himself to his Kenti peers. He is our youngest member, and the one with the shortest military career so far; he signed the oath less than three years ago, yet he is every bit as capable as some of the most experienced men under my command. He carries an A-DRK with underslung rocket launcher, identical to the one I use. It is his duty to be the first through any breech, a task he approaches with relish. I never fail to wonder at how capable he is; most humans cannot even lift a loaded A-DRK, yet he carries his with as much ease as any of my team.

Jason is relentlessly sarcastic and excessively violent. Oddly, that is why he is so good at his job.

My talon medic, Landwarrior First Class S'rath'naia K'rala'tarn. He is extremely short and stocky with deep red-brown fur; he is only six foot six tall and is as wide across the shoulders as I am. He is one of the very few men who have ever beaten me in a contest of strength, yet he is as gentle as a newborn child; many men of S'rath'naia's size and build become arrogant thugs. S'rath'naia beat the expectations by becoming a fully-qualified medical doctor, then completely confused everyone who knows him by signing up to the military. He is quiet and soft-spoken, but a deadly shot and capable of denting plate duraniuam with a punch; he carries a standard A-DRK with underslung, and of course his medical kit.

S'rath'naia has saved the lives of every one of us at least once.

My talon mage, Spellwarrior First Class Liaria Ruka A'garath'targ. She is an exceptionally slender woman with gorgeous pale fur patterned with spots; her colouration serves as superb camouflage. I fancy her, but I'll never tell her; it would be bad for morale. She is the only woman I know who can make a First Legion battledress look sexy just by her stance; she is also an alumni of the great Collegium Arcanum at Hogwarts on Taragh, and she is without a shadow of a doubt the deadliest member of my team. Many operations become a matter of getting Liaria into place to finish the job. Sometimes I wonder if we've somehow become her personal bodyguards.

The entire talon view Liaria a bit like our precious little sister.

My first trooper, Landwarrior First Class K'nah'tairag S'raik'tara. He is the perennial average Kenti guy – about seven foot four, long-armed, fur of a slightly sandy middling brown, and eternally cocky. I used to think his cockiness was going to get him killed, until I realised he does not let it impair his judgement at any time; it is simply a façade he presents to the world. He is a good, solid, dependable all-round soldier, a competent shot with any weapon you care to hand him, and a competent swordsman.

K'nah'tairag is a man I can trust to fulfil almost any role within the squad I need to assign him; he cannot cover for Liaria, but that's it.

My second trooper, Landwarrior First Class Theria Kaiha T'garath'jag. She is a tall, heavyset girl with dark brown fur shot through with clusters of jet black spots. She is the most 'professional' of the lot of us; staid, serious, and relentlessly competent. Beneath that lies a sly sense of humour and reflexes like a ferret on pixie sticks.

Theria is a superb soldier.

And lastly, my talon technician, Engineer T'ar'gal K'rath'han. T'ar'gal is a touch above average height and fairly slender, and his fur is a highly unusual grey. He is a highly competent combat engineer, as at home repairing our carrier's engine under fire or setting a bomb as he is in the workshop on a mechanic's creeper. He drives our talon carrier, and it is also his duty to undertake any field engineering I need.

T'ar'gal is an ugly bastard, and takes a dim view of us louts smashing up his precious machines, but we've learned to like him – once you get past his prickly exterior he's got a good sense of humour and doesn't take anything too seriously.

Then there is me. My father is High Alpha K'tarag'jal R'hara'tath, personal bodyguard of Her Radiant Majesty, Queen Rialia R'harash'gai the Twelfth. My name is S'tarak'hai R'hara'tath; I shall someday be the bodyguard of our next queen, and I am not bragging when I say I am one of the most dangerous men in Her Radiant Majesty's Armed Forces; my body contains cybernetic systems worth enough to purchase a fully-armed battleship.

A sound reaches my ears. It is the noise of at least one engine.

Curious.

I mentally access my chalet's security systems and activate the camera that overlooks the long access road; a window pops up in my peripheral vision, it's image crystal-clear despite being in the region of vision where one cannot normally focus. The effect took me some time to get used to when my cybernetic brain augmentation was originally installed.

The camera immediately picks up the source of the engine noise, revealing it to be coming from four vehicles. One is familiar; my father's New Australian-built Holden Brigand double-cab lowrider pickup truck. The other three are unknowns, though I recognise the models, and can but guess the significance.

The second is likewise a model constructed on New Australia; a Corley Motors VX-21 Steel Wolf, in Fenrir specification. These machines are extremely unusual; only four currently exist, and all are the private property of one man. If I have correctly identified the motorcycle, the power-armoured rider can only be Cloud Strife, Grand Champion of the Old Atlantean Empire. Many claim that he is the consort of the Empress herself.

The third vehicle supports the guess as to the biker's identity. It is an Imperial-built Rhino armoured personnel carrier, its blocky silhouette eternally familiar, painted in the colours of the Grey Knights chapter of Her special forces, the Adeptus Astartes. The men within are the equals of my talon. Their armour is superior to ours, but our weapons and mobility are superior to theirs, and our armoured carrier makes theirs look like the clumsy brick it assuredly is. To an Earther, the lack of a camouflage scheme on the vehicle would seem odd; here in the real galaxy attempts at camouflage as measly as a simple paint job are rendered utterly pointless due to advanced sensor technology. Our uniforms are composed of fabric that breaks up and scatters our infra-red and magnetic silhouettes as well as our shape; the Old Atlanteans do not have the correct materials technology to replicate it.

The fourth vehicle is an enigma. It is an Earther groundcar. I run a search on the silhouette, and rapidly find a match; it is a 1972 Ford XB Falcon, a vehicle of some cultural significance on New Australia. I note that it lacks any registration plates or identifying marks. It's windows are heavily tinted, preventing me getting a clear image of the occupants; I momentarily consider attempting enhancement of an image, but discard the notion, the security camera's resolution is too low.

I alert my troops to the approaching vehicles. T'rael'aisha moves to a concealed position and readies the big gun; it is entirely possible that my father's vehicle has been stolen.

That supposition proves itself incorrect as the four vehicles come to a halt outside my chalet and Father steps from the driver's door of his truck. The rider swings from the Fenrir, removes the helmet from his Imperial power armour and hangs it on the handlebars; he is either Cloud Strife, or a careful replication of that luminary. The Rhino's hatch opens, revealing ten Imperial Space Marines in the uniform of the Grey Knights; only one of them exits the vehicle.

The Falcon's door opens, and a powerful-looking man I at first mistake for a Deladarian exits. Then I notice his eyes; they are green, slitted and lizard-like. I am unsure of his species.

The four approach the front door of my chalet. I go to greet them.

One look at Father's face and I know something is seriously wrong.

"Father. What's wrong?" I ask.

"It's Princess Zarie." He says. "She's been kidnapped." Reiana cannot stifle the gasp that passes her lips.

"Her bodyguard?" I ask, not bothering to keep the worry out of my voice. Princess Zarie's bodyguard is I and Reiana's triplet, Naira Theria R'hara'tath.

"Alive." Father says. "Barely."

"What happened?" Jason asks. Father doesn't bat an eyelid at the man speaking out of turn; Father is not that sort of officer.

"Naira took the princess down to Coronation Park, like she always does." Father says. "They were jumped by killer dolls. Thirty of 'em. Naira put paid to seventeen of the bitches before they pulled her down. One took the princess in a hyperspace sled and exited the system; the remainder stayed behind and got shot to ratshit. The U-281 and the U-377 are tracking the sled; it's heading deep into New Atlantean space."

There is a violent crunch; S'rath'naia has just driven his clenched fist clean through the table.

Naira is his fiancée.

"How is Naira?" I ask.

A flash of mixed pride and worry appears on Father's face. For a moment, he is neither our commanding officer nor the High Alpha of our prathi; he is simply a father whose beautiful 28-year-old daughter has just been severely injured in the process of doing her duty.

"It's a miracle she's still alive. They tore her to ribbons; she's lost most of the left side of her body – leg, arm, eye, ear, even her left wing… She was still shooting when the police got there; she wouldn't let herself pass out until she'd given me her report. She's in intensive care in the Royal Hospital; Doctor N'alat'yai tells me she'll be going into cybersurgery as soon as they're sure she's stabilised."

There is another crunch; S'rath'naia just drove his other fist through the table.

"Where do these three come in, sir?" T'ar'gal asks.

"This is Cloud Strife." My father says. So I was right.

Cloud takes over.

"Ten hours ago," he says in his surprisingly soft voice, "Princess Lahari was also taken, in an attack that matched this one perfectly. My empress has reasons to believe that the culprits are one and the same. Brother-Captain Angelus is lending me his assistance."

"And you?" I ask the other guy.

Father snorts. "This is Master Gunner Harry Johnson of the Order of Talos. He has information concerning the attack."

"And you're getting it assuming two things." The dark-haired youth says.

"Name them." I say.

"First off, seventy thousand New Australian dollars, cash only. In God we trust, all others pay cash. My life has a lot of expenses, ammunition for a start. Secondly, I want in on this. A friend of mine was injured when they grabbed Lahari LeSaga, and I want direct payback."

"And what information can you offer us?" I ask. For some reason, Cloud lets out a low chuckle.

Harry's head tips forwards a little.

"My daughter is the Old Atlantean Senshei of Time." He states. "She couldn't prevent the attacks, but she does have who, where, when and why. And she's given me section, chapter, and paragraph. I know who took those girls, where they're being taken, and where to go to give the bastards a warm reception. Am I in?"

"We don't have time to babysit." K'nah'tairag states, sneering at Harry.

Harry moves, so fast he's a blur too fast for even my heavily-augmented reflexes to track. Then his booted foot slams into the side of K'nah'tairag's head, flinging him face-first through the window.

I wince. That he had coming; a Talosian master gunner is not someone a wise man would trifle with. I'm not that happy about my window, but right now the destruction of a sheet of glass is rather low on my list of priorities.

"Any other fuckwad think I can't take care of myself?" Harry asks.

"See that bottle?" T'rael'aisha remarks, pointing.

Harry looks where he's pointing. The bottle in question is on a ridgeline six hundred metres away, silhouetted against the sky.

"Sure I do." Harry replies.

T'rael'aisha points at the Deladarian landwarrior's powerbow Harry has slung across his back. "Let's see you plink that bottle, kid."

Harry nods, steps to the door and swings the powerbow off his back. A touch of the activation gem and the powerbow opens up with a spine-chilling buzz; a sound that has been the last thing ever heard by all too many Kenti, all too many of them civilians.

There is a whispering noise as Harry fires. I track the flicker of force that is the powerbow bolt as it rushes through the air; the bottle explodes.

"Good shot, Johnson." T'rael'aisha says.

"You're in." I say.

"Right. Here's what I've got. They're heading for a stage one colony on the northwest fringes of Nalfer space. The sled carrying Princess Zarie will be there in about ten hours; the sled carrying Princess Lahari will be there two hours behind them. It's unfortunate, but we'll have to wait until Lahari's captors arrive before we strike." Harry states.

"Why?" Liaria growls.

"Because if we grab you guys princess back before they're both there, the bastards will turn that sled right round and vanish into the core of Nalfer space." Harry tells her.

"I see." I say. "And how do you propose we beat a fast sled there, Johnson?"

"That's simple; I borrowed a fold courier off the Chaos family." This does not cause Cloud to bat an eyelid; he was expecting it. My team, on the other hand, react with a certain level of shock.

"Don't be so surprised." Father remarks. "Our queen is a close friend of Grand Warlord Chaos, you know."

I nod. "Let's go to work, people." I say. Nobody argues with that.

After all, this isn't just about duty. This is personal.

The Nalfers tried to destroy the honour of Prathi R'hara'tath. They tried to destroy the most beautiful flower of my generation. They tried to break a trust my forebears have maintained for almost eighty thousand years.

We are not going to take this laying down. We are going to get out there and rescue those two little girls.

We are the finest warriors in the galaxy, and the day those bastards forgot it they signed their own death warrants.

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**Author's Note**

Just a bit of background material on how Harry and S'tarak'hai met, that should give a broad hint as to how Harry got the Fenrir, and why he's in tight with the Kenti government. Note that from S'tarak'hai's perspective (and indeed the timeline itself) this takes place two years before Headmaster's Socks, but from Harry's perspective it's about twenty years before he got on the train. Time travel is like that.


	4. 4: Coronation Day

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

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My name is Setsuna Arieth Hermione Lily Fawcett Meiuu-Potter, and it is my sixteenth birthday.

I awoke earlier than usual today. The bright star that is Tars Sahal'dat was just rising, casting it's weak shadows across the Plutonian wastelands and shining into the hab dome at just the right angle that it came through my bedroom window and got me in the eyes.

I rolled over so my back was to the Imperial Star. Further insystem, I am told that it is too bright to look at. Here on the fringes of the solar system, it is weak enough to look directly at, but doing so is still unpleasant.

Sadly for my attempts to return to slumberland, that distant light had provided enough input to bring me fully awake, and I gave in after a few moments thought, rose, slipped into the clean clothes the servants had left out, and walked out onto my balcony.

It is a lonely life being the future ruler of the Imperial Star's smallest population. The queen of Mars rules nearly fifteen billion souls; when I am crowned I will have almost precisely one million subjects, all of whom look upon me with a mixture of awe and fear.

There is only one highlight to it all; my only friend and my only kin.

My father.

Dad comes from the far distant future, in a time when the Empire is naught but a long-faded memory, though that thought itself borders on treason.

He is a tall, powerfully-built man with long dark hair, sardonic lizard-like green eyes, pointed ears that hang out to the sides of his head, and a face that seems made for sneering. He only ever smiles when he's talking to me; I have never seen him direct anything but barely-disguised disdain at anyone else.

I love it when Dad smiles; it makes me feel warm inside. I wish he'd smile more, and I often wonder what happened that made him the way he is. No other man I have ever met suffers that constant mix of rage and pain, and I wish I knew a way to help my father.

He is, after all, the one who makes my life bearable.

I stand on the balcony and feel the morning breeze stroke my cheek. The habitation dome that provides a home to all Plutonians is vast enough that it contains weather patterns; the wind is never strong, but it is always there. Over to the south a light shower of rain is falling; it will not be long before the rain reaches the palace and soaks me to the skin.

The sound of an engine reaches my ears. It is not the electric motors I am used to hearing; it is the snarl of a hydrocarbon-burning piston engine, a sound that never fails to make the fine downy hair along my spine stand on end.

I turn my head, and there he is, streaking up the long winding road from Pluto City on his great black-and-chrome motorcycle; Dad.

I wave, and head down to the Great Hall at a swift jog to meet him, uncaring of the inevitable disapproval of the courtiers; my father is far more important than any courtly decorum. I ignore the maids and footmen setting up for this afternoon's reception; today at noon I will reach my majority, and the Empress herself will arrive with pomp and splendour to declare me the Queen of Pluto, and make official that which began two years ago; it will become public knowledge that I am indeed Sailor Pluto.

It will be a very telling political event. For the first time in our people's three hundred thousand year history, one of mixed race will be seated upon the throne of a world in the capital system; for that is the thing that draws controversy about me.

I am less than one quarter Sahal'dati.

My father is a strange mixture, as am I. Like him, I have prominent features possessed by no Sahal'dati; primarily a set of razor-sharp talons where my fingernails should be, and pointed ears set a little high on my head. The green of my hair is another giveaway, as are my eyes; my coroneas are a green so dark they almost look black. Only two generations ago, I would not have been permitted within any palace in the Empire; less than three centuries ago, I would not have been permitted within ten AU of the capital world, and only a thousand years ago I would not have been permitted anywhere within the capital system.

And now I am to be made Queen of Pluto; I will rule one of the most strategically vital worlds in ten thousand light years, for Charon bears the Imperial Navy's primary dockyards, and Pluto itself bears the Empire's best-kept secret; the unknowably ancient device called the Gates of Time.

Some whisper that I am only being accepted to quiet the many alien-rights activists within the Empire. But I know the truth; I have been chosen as Sailor Pluto because I am the most dangerous girl in the entire Empire.

I arrive in the Great Hall. As I had guessed, the preparations for today's reception are under full swing.

My father enters the far end of the hall, and I run to meet him.

For a moment, the fate that has been thrust upon me is forgotten. For a moment, my worries vanish. For a moment, I am not a princess who is about to become Queen.

For a moment, I am just a sixteen year old girl running to greet her father.

We meet in an embrace at the centre of the room; Dad kisses my forehead, and for one precious moment it is just us.

"Happy birthday, kiddo." Dad says.

Then everything comes flooding back as courtiers make small disapproving noises. Dad casts his flat glare around and the noises cease, but the spell is already broken; I am Princess Setsuna again.

"Got a surprise for you." Dad says, jerking me away from my melancholy. "Let's head up to your meditation hall and I'll show you."

At that moment, I notice that he's got a Martian army kitbag on his shoulder; I momentarily wonder what it's for, then catch the chief of my guards giving me the is-this-okay look, so I nod.

And I and Dad make our way towards my private quarters.

We arrive in my meditation hall. Like everything in the palace, it is opulent and not really mine.

Dad stops in the middle of the hall, turns round, and puts the kitbag down. He extracts a bulky palmtop computer, works with it for a long moment, then smiles.

"I love it when I'm right."

"Right about what, Dad?" I ask.

"This is the only room in the entire palace that ain't bugged." Dad says with a shrug. "Hell, they've even got cameras in your bathroom. And the Old Atlantean mania for purity of dojos comes through for me again. Look, kid. You're like I was when I was your age – you're nothing even remotely ready to take on what's about to be dumped on you, are you?"

"No." I admit, looking at my feet.

Dad chuckles quietly to himself.

"Well, here's the plan. Two hundred and fifty thousand years from now, there's a safe place I know where you can train, study, and simply put get yourself ready, and you can take all the time you like. There's just one caveat though."

"Name it." I say.

Dad smiles; it's his grim smile.

"When I was your age, you rescued me from the bastards who'd imprisoned me for the first sixteen years of my life. Incidentally, you were doing it on the day of your sixteenth birthday."

A headache begins to build in the back of my skull. I recognise it; Dad has just backed me into a corner. If I don't do what he tells me, I will cause a temporal paradox, and I am not allowed to do that.

"Daaad! You could have just asked!"

Dad chuckles.

"Sorry. Forgot about your headaches." I'm fairly sure he didn't.

"Okay, I'm going to go change into comfies. I'll meet you back here in ten minutes, and we'll be ready to go."

Dad nods, grins and winks. I hurry to my bedchamber.

Ten minutes later, I am back in the meditation hall. I am no longer dressed in the clothes the servants laid out for me; I am now dressed in what I call comfies, clothes from Dad's time.

They are;

A white top that's basically a scrap of stretchy cloth tied round my body over my breasts.

My favourite choker; the black one with the silver plate with 'Daddy's Girl' written on it.

A pair of denim jeans, the knees reinforced with leather patches.

Lumpy combat boots.

And, of course, a glove with reinforced fingertips to cover the talons on my natural hand.

Didn't I mention that? When I was six standard years old, a dragon bit my right arm off just below the shoulder. That dragon is of course now dead (Dad went ballistic on him) and I now have a cybernetic arm.

It is composed of brightly-polished duranium alloy similar to that they construct starships from.

I chose a simple-looking military layout to annoy the courtiers; it is not the sort of decorative affair maimed noblewomen are supposed to use, it is a utilitarian combat model strong enough to punch through the breastplate of a suit of Terminator super power armour and it is fitted with retractable talons sharp enough to cut through that self-same armour plate. It was made to my specifications in the foundries of Mars; I must remember to thank Queen Lanaia Kelth'ira once more for putting me in touch with Tech-Adept Venkmann. He obviously appreciated the statement I chose to make, as he did his finest work and stated that he approved of any noble who chose 'an honest machine of function' over what he called 'ornate frippery'.

Thanks to Dad's training me, I am nearly as strong as my cybernetic limb.

Dad grins and hugs me with one arm.

"OK, kiddo. We'll need to use the Gates of Time for this."

I nod, hug Dad back, and concentrate.

And then we are somewhere else.

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My name is Setsuna Arieth Hermione Lily Fawcett Meiuu-Potter, and I am just over six million years of age. I haven't any idea exactly how old; using time travel to the degree I do is a good way to lose track of your actual age.

I am standing at the top of the bluff below the Larsa III starport; I smile as I watch my younger self, and my sixteen-year-old father, walk away towards a better future.

How different I was back then. How simple.

The crunch of boots on gravel alerts me, and I turn round.

Two men are walking towards me. I recognise them both; one is my father as I know him best, the other is a colleague; Cloud Strife, Grand Champion of the Empire, the man they call the Empress's right hand.

Both men have dark, serious looks on their faces as they arrive before me.

"Dad. Cloud." I say.

"Hey, kiddo." Dad says. No matter how much older than him I get, I'll always be his precious little girl; he's kind of funny like that.

"Pluto." Cloud says, and his voice instantly tells me that something is extremely wrong. "We have a situation."

"Elaborate." I say.

"Less than two hours ago, Princess Lahari was taken by unknown assailants. We believe she is unhurt, so far." Cloud states. I am surprised he is keeping it together so well.

After all, he is not only talking about our future Empress.

He is talking about his daughter.

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**Author's Note:**

From the now-it-can-be-told department, this is the direct precursor to Short 3: For Honour and Vengeance, and it brackets chapter 14 of Headmaster's Socks. If you're wondering how Harry had the Fenrir at the start of the chapter, that's because there are 3 different ages of Harry here. The one who collected Setsuna from the palace is Harry about a month before he began at the Collegium. The one who Setsuna collected from the Dursleys is Harry at age 16. And the one who met the older Setsuna at the Larsa III spaceport along with Cloud is Harry at about age 300, so around 20 years (for him) before he started attending the Collegium and directly before the mission after which he was given the Fenrir.

Time travel gets mind-bending. Writing a story with time travel running right through the core… now that gets interesting.


	5. 5: Adrift

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

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He didn't know who he was, or how old he was. He didn't know his parents' names, he didn't know where he'd been born, and he didn't know where he'd come from. He didn't even know his own name.

All he knew was that he wasn't human – nothing human has those claws, nothing human can be back on their feet thirty seconds after being shot in the face at point-blank range with a .357 Magnum. Whenever anyone had asked him whether he was a mutant or something else, he just shook his head and repeated his mantra;

"I don't know, bub. I just don't know."

He'd tell you he didn't know anything, not even why he kept going.

Did he have a family? Did he have children? Was there a girl somewhere wondering when her love would come back to her? Was there a house somewhere with his name – whatever it really was – on the paperwork? Was he rich or poor?

He didn't know.

All he knew was that he was alive.

He lived in the now. Tomorrow wasn't something he thought about, nor was yesterday – that way lay madness. Sometimes, he got flashes of his past – nebulous things that faded swiftly, but afterwards he'd rage for hours, driven to a berserk fury by something he couldn't name or describe, the only thing he could remember a sneering face he wanted to sink his claws into. The strangest things could flip him over the edge into that howling insanity; sudden bright green lights, seeing a woman die, reptiles – and he couldn't explain why.

All he knew was that this was the way he was.

He roamed the world, footloose and cocksure, a cigar between his teeth and his hand wrapped around a pint of ale, wondering and wandering, sure that there was more even as he drifted like a cork in a storm, propelled from one port to another by the ferocious inertia of his travels – he had a girl in every port, and in some ports he had all the girls.

He entered countries without passport or baggage checks; he flew by airlines listed on no airport manifest, travelled by ships that did not officially land, slipped past borders in containers or on the backs of trains, never stopping, always searching.

In some places, they called him a warrior. In others, a murderer. In some places, they called him a villain; in others, they called him a holy man.

He was a drifter and a brawler, a tramp and a cage-fighter. A hero and a hobo; a rootless man, a desolate burned-out shell of a man, wandering from place to place, wherever the tides of life might take him. His only lord was the grumble of marine diesel engines, the rattle of wheels on tracks, and the strident blare of a truck's air horns; wherever he went, the endless reaches of blacktop and railway and ocean called him onwards.

He had no nationality or identity; all he knew of where he came from was that people said he sounded Canadian. In places all across the globe, he was welcomed by the poor and sought by the police; from Siberia to Jamaica, from Liverpool to Brisbane, from South Georgia to Iceland, there was a bed and warm food waiting for him. Wherever the common people of a world gather with drink and good cheer, his return was awaited; these past ten years he had made himself a hero for the working class of the Earth as he clawed his way through oppressors and dictators, corrupt cops and gangsters, terrorists and secret police; if he had a home, it was the battlefield for the hidden wars of his world.

He was alive in the surge of the ocean, the rattle of steel wheels against steel rails, the roar of tyres on tarmac, and the thrum of aero-engines; he had hitch-hiked and worked his passage from Germany to Australia and back again, never hesitating to travel onwards. Behind him he'd left a trail of folk songs and sad-eyed girls, of bad men's tombs and voices begging him to return; but he'd never found anywhere that felt quite right.

His name was, as far as he knew, Logan. A world over he was the enemy of the oppressor, the foe of the dictator, the villain's worst nightmare. He had sought out scraps with starving people in Ethiopia; he had dined at the table of the Emperor of Japan. He had sung and drank with Russians and with Scots, with Creoles and with Colombians; he had midwifed the birth of two dozen nations, and walked the back roads of two hundred more.

He was a man who had never known a place where he belonged; for as long as he could remember he had been searching for that place, and he was certain that some day, seeing the bright lights on the horizon, he would know that he was coming home.

But, until that time, wherever he went, they called him Wolverine.

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- Just something that I felt had to be written. It's been laying around on my hard-drive for a while now, and since the old Short 5 has become a part of 'A Fox in Tokyo', well...

Doghead Out.


	6. 6: Anatomy of a Warrior

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

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This is the anatomy of a warrior.

A white knight.

A man who fights, not for gain, but because it has to be done, because it is personal, and because someone _must_ make that stand – for the sake of everyone he will ever know.

This is the anatomy of a hero.

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What am I? Am I alone? Is there anyone else like me out there?

These are all questions that've been drifting around in the back of my mind since the first time I realized everyone else has one less bone in each forearm.

The bones I'm talking about are between my ulna and radius, right, and run right from my elbows to my wrists. I call them my uldiuses. When I rotate my hand, it sort of pivots on the end of the middle bone, right, while the two bones most people have there sort of twist round it. Hard to describe, I know. I don't have as much wrist rotation as Jesse did, but he was always kinda bendy.

God, I miss him.

Yeah, he's dead. He's been dead for a while – just under a year now. He died the same day as I found out what's really going on in this shit-hole town.

God do I wish I'd known.

See, there's always been something wrong with Sunnydale. One of those suspicions on the back of your mind that something just isn't right, but you can't put your finger on it until it slaps you in the face and kills your friends. I mean, how many podunk Californian towns have a local newspaper that has a three-page daily obituary section? Or twelve big graveyards for a population a bit under forty thousand?

We're two hours south of L.A, and if you compare newspapers you'll think Sunnyhell has a bigger gang-violence problem than Los Angeles. Every day there's talk about attacks by 'gang members on PCP'. Every fucking day.

Hint: they're not on PCP. They're the undead. Sunnyhell is the front-line in the war against things that go bump in the night. Someone in authority knows – see, we ended up getting hold of one of the local cops' riot gun a few months back, and discovered the shotgun shells were packed with matchsticks instead of buck. Makes me wonder why the cops don't do shit. They just lurk in that bunker-like cop-shop of theirs and wait for the sun to come back up so they can go clean up the night's mess.

Everyone who's been here more than a couple years has some idea that Sunnyhell isn't exactly the pretty picture it looks like during daytime. You hear things, right? Stuff like body-bags turning up empty at the morgue, there's rumors that the cops exhumed people a few times and discovered the coffin empty and busted open from inside – things like that. Half the shops on the high street are these new-agey places or second-hand book shops, and they've got some real strange things on sale.

It's like when they made Sunnydale they blurred the lines between what's real and what you supposedly only get in horror stories.

Sometimes, people work out what's going on. Most of the time, they get the Hell out of town leaving behind anything they can't fit in their car. There's plenty people – some of them in school – with this funny look in their eyes you only usually see in Vietnam vets – the one like they're staring into the beyond – and suspicious bulges under their jackets. Occasionally they'll try to warn everyone. It never seems to work.

God, about two years back this mad old vet rolled through town in a Winnebago full of weapons. I owe him my life and so does Willow – my still-alive best friend – and so did Jesse. We nearly got gotten by the 'gang members on PCP' that night, only this vet – I think he said his name was Becerra – fought them off. He tried to warn us. We didn't listen.

Jesse paid the price a year later.

Funny how it all comes back to Jesse, and I don't mean ha-ha type funny.

The night he died was the night I found out what those extra bones in my arms do. I'm not sure what all was going on that night. It was just after this new girl rolled into town. Girl named Buffy Summers – as far as I know 'Buffy' is a weird way of shortening 'Elizabeth' but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's kinda embarrassing but about the first thing I did first time I saw her was skateboard into a street sign because I was distracted; she really is that hot. Then I kinda ran into her near the lockers, right, and she dropped something.

When I realized she'd dropped a stake – I'm talking like eight inches of wrist-thick wood with one end sharpened – well, I figured the best thing to do was find out what was going on. So I followed her.

Yeah, I know, it sounds kinda sad. So sue me, someone dropping a stake right in front of me kinda got my attention, right?

She got in this really weird conversation with the new librarian. He was talking about vampires and stuff. She told him to get bent.

That night, we went Bronzing – the Bronze is about the only thing to do evenings in Sunnydale, unless you have an auto and want to drive to L.A and overnight there – and Wills and Jesse pulled. We were like, strike one off the list of things that'll never happen.

Problem being, they'd both pulled vampires. God I wish I'd known.

So I was still keeping an eye on Buffy. I followed her to one of the graveyards, right, and after that it's all a bit of a tangle and I can't really keep things straight about what did and didn't happen, but after the dust settled me and Wills and Buffy were okay but Jesse was missing.

Turns out he'd been turned into a vampire. We ran into him the next day, again things are a bit of a tangle in my mind but he ended up getting shoved onto a stake I was holding.

God, he mouthed 'thank you' while he was turning into a pile of dust.

I went ape-shit.

It felt like my mind was on fire, and everything's a red-brown blur.

When I came to my clothes were shredded, I was sprawled on the ground in the middle of a graveyard, there was these bastard great bone claws sticking out the backs of my knuckles, three out of each hand, and there was dust and blood everywhere, the ground was ripped up, some of the gravestones were smashed in – it looked like a bomb had gone off.

I legged it home and hid in the basement. After a while, the claws slid back into my arms and where they'd ripped through between my knuckles healed up real fast. Hurt like hell, but I was past caring right then.

Anyway, not long after that I got told about vampires and Slayers and such-like.

The Slayer. One girl in all the world empowered to mangle 'gang-members on PCP' as bad as they mangle everyone else. I bet that sounds like a fairytale to you, huh? It's not, and I must remember to take time to thank my lucky stars for that when I finally get to bed tonight. Watching Buff go for it is like watching a hurricane crossed with an earthquake crossed with a tornado trapped inside a five-nothing blond girl, and I know I am very very very lucky she is my friend.

There was this one time a couple months ago this old car got possessed or something, it was totally like Christine, and Buff punched clean through the grille and ripped the engine out with her bare hands – but when she's not in Slay-mode (she goes hyper and gets this kinda funny look in her eyes, almost like some sort of wild animal) she'd just a regular So-Cal girl. Sure, she's strong – stronger than me and I'm not ashamed to say that – but not like, super-strong.

The G-man (that's Giles, he's English and I mean very English, all tweedy and stuffy and proper and such, he's the librarian at school and Buffy's Watcher, that's like an adviser or tutor or some-such, mostly he hides behind old books and tells her how to slay things) says a Slayer's strength responds iteratively to adrenaline, and I'm not really sure what that means but I think it means that the more het up the Buffster gets the stronger she gets.

Well, that's when she's not getting silly over Deadboy, but the less said about that the better.

Anyway, since Jesse died me and Wills have been helping Buffy out every chance we get. Buffy used to keep going on about how it wasn't our fight and we shouldn't get involved and blah blah blah, but we ignored her on that because, Slayer or not, she's only one girl and the moment Jesse got vampired this became our fight. The damn vampires made it personal, Jesse was my brother, even though we've got different parents, and the moment those leeches touched him they became my enemies – and I know Willow feels the same.

It's proved to be a good thing too. The way I see it is, she's our friendly neighborhood superhero and you're damn right I'm going to do every last thing I can to support her, and not just because she's the Slayer. She's our friend now, and helping our friends is that thing we do.

So there's all sorts of weird shit has happened since we sat down with the Buffster and the G-man and were like, look, we're already involved, we're starting to learn the deal here, and what it's telling us isn't making us want to not be involved – something has to be done. We said to Giles that, you can't ask Buffy to be involved and not expect to have her friends involved too. What kind of friend leaves a friend to fight things that're only supposed to exist in fairy-stories alone?

I'll never forget how grateful Buffy looked when I asked Giles that. Afterwards, she asked if we were really her friends, or if we were just doing this because our friend had died.

Willow gave her the resolve face, and said that she'd saved our lives so of course she was our friend. That's what friends do for each other.

I nodded a lot.

It's been pretty exciting, really. There's always something happening. My uncle was in Vietnam, and when I asked he said it was long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of terror. Being Buffy's friend is a bit like that, but replace the boredom with mostly fun.

Well anyway, I thought, right, this is the way things are gonna be, until I got possessed by the hyena.

Yeah, you heard me right. Possessed by a hyena. Something called 'primals' but I'm not sure what that means apart from completely berserk.

First it was the claws and the whole freaking out thing. Now... well, it started with that mess with the hyenas. I'm not really sure what the hell all happened – it's a bit of a blur, not as bad as when I freak out over Jesse but pretty bad – and about the only thing I can clearly remember is attacking one of my friends. Someone I kinda wish was a whole lot more than a friend.

Buffy.

Christ, I tried to rape her. When I realized what I'd done, I went kinda crazy and took off. I was still running at sundown, and I nearly ended up as a statistic for the 'gang members on PCP'.

That's what the cops and the papers call them. It was vampires, five of them, and one of them got me with a goddamn ax. A no shit medieval choppy killy ax like you'd see Vikings or something waving around. Next thing I knew, there was this real bad pain – I can't really describe how bad – where one of my arms should be, while the arm's gone flying into a ditch.

I was stumbling around and screaming when one of them jumped me and before I knew what was going on the back of my still-on hand started hurting too and I got the feeling like my blood was on fire and everything was sort of hazed in red and there was this sort of breaking feeling inside my head, and when I came out of it there was blood – my blood, thank God – everywhere, and vamp dust, and my clothes were pretty messed up, and it was like all of my senses had gone totally hyper, and my arm was back.

My watch wasn't busted, but it was still on the loose arm's wrist.

Loose arm. Right. My arm had grown back in less than a minute. I know that because I'd calmed down a bit and checked the time right before they jumped me, and it took me a bit of searching to find my watch after, and like one minute twelve seconds had gone past. I mean, look, I've always healed up pretty quick, especially from that whole claws thing, but this was just unreal. Cut-off arms aren't supposed to grow back, they're supposed to be this bleedy-to-deathy type of stuff. Not that I'm complaining, mind, but it's the sort of thing that freaks a guy out. I kinda find myself wondering if I'm one of those mutant thingies that turn up in the tabloids every so often. Or am I part-demon or something? I mean, I don't think it's a side-effect of the hyena, because the whole claws thing's been around since before I knew about hyena-spirits, but the brighter colors and the smells and the weird hearing might be.

I don't know and part of me doesn't want to find out, but I know I've got to find out, but I can't let Buff find out until I know I'm not about to turn into some sort of Big Bad because if that happens I'm going to have to get her to slay me and that is the sort of idea that tends to freak a guy out.

After my arm got cut off I think I was in shock for a while, but I made it home with blood all over me and one sleeve missing off my shirt, and I'm still not sure if leaving the arm in a dumpster was a bad idea or not. I haven't told my folks what happened. Hell, they probably wouldn't want to know, though Tony (my dad, drunk old asshole that he is) gave me a funny look when he caught me finishing up burning what was left of the clothes I'd been wearing when it all went down, but he didn't ask.

About an hour after that, Buff checked past my folks' house for like the third time that night. When she saw me there, she went off on a rant at me for running off like that, and then next morning I had Wills going all big-sad-eyes resolve-face on me and when that happens I just can't say no, so it looks like I'm not allowed to take off on my own at night, which seems kinda screwed up because it's happened every couple weeks since Jesse died but I guess they didn't know those times so this is the first time I had everyone kinda worried something was going to eat me. At least I know they're not still mad at me over that hyena business.

I guess that's partly because I haven't told anyone about the weird hyena-related dreams I've been having since that crap, and I'm worried what's going to happen next time it feels like my blood's gone on fire, and I guess I'll just have to deal with that when it happens.

I haven't told anyone anything. Last night was the first time anyone else who didn't get dusted right after saw my claws, and that was only because there was something more important going on, because last night Buffy nearly died down in the caves under town.

There was this prophecy, right, about this vampire calling itself 'the Master' and I can't help the silly accent when I say that because it's something only Igor would be able to say and keep a straight face. So apparently Buffy was going to die and that'd herald 'The Marrthterrr, dun dun duuuuun' coming back and making the whole world go boom.

Screw prophecies, they can take a number. I was trying to find out what was going on, and G-man told me about it and where Buffy had gone, and I tracked down Deadboy because he knew how to get down there. He was sulking in his mansion. I told him if he didn't get me right down there I'd make sure he got a long loving terminal view of the next sunrise, and he was like 'you and who's army' and I didn't have any other weapon so I popped the claws, right there right then, because I'd learned how to get them to go in and out without me going mental and it was that or Buffy was dead and that's not allowed to happen..

Deadboy. He's sort of Buffy's boyfriend, but he's a vampire, but apparently he's not the evil sort of vampire. He's also a sulky bastard who likes dropping hints then taking off like Cinderella or something, and I'm pretty sure he's just using her.

So I had him at claw-point, and he went real polite and pale, and I mean even paler than usual, and he muttered something I didn't catch, and then he led me down into the caves, real polite-like, and I found Buffy down there. She'd been bit, in the neck, she was face-down in a big puddle, and she wasn't breathing – it was like Jesse all over again.

I can remember forcing the water out of her lungs. I can remember blowing into her mouth and then pressing on her chest to make her exhale. I can remember tasting blood, and I'm still not sure if it was hers or mine. I can remember her letting out this sort of wet sounding gasp and opening her eyes. But everything else is this sort of mad blur and I'm not sure what order things happened in, but I do know I pretty much brought her back from the dead.

I'm not even sure if she knows it was me. Well, either she doesn't or she called me an angel when she was still coming round, and that's Deadboy's nickname.

Now 'The Marrrthterrrrrrrrr, de da de daaaaaa' is pushing up daisies, the Hellmouth's as closed as it ever gets, Buffy's fighting fit, we're all still kicking and all's about as well with the world as it's ever gonna get – but I still keep coming back to, humans don't regrow cut-off arms and humans don't have bastard great claws that come out the backs of their hands. I don't really know anything any more; I don't even know what the Hell I am.

The only thing I know for certain is, my name is Alexander Lavelle Harris and I am alive.

And maybe, if this isn't turning me into one of Them, Buffy might not have to be the only superhero in Sunnyhell any more.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

NB: Written in US English as Xander is American. Sequence of events taken from Wikipedia's list of Buffy episodes.

Thanks to the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group for aiding and abetting, and to Ed Becerra for being who he is.

Doghead Out.


	7. 7: Living on a Razor's Edge

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Sitting on a fence. Watching the world go by. Thinking.

Remembering things on the edge of memory.

Sitting on a fence.

Wondering.

Why me? Why mine?

Remembering the place between life and death.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

My name is Elizabeth Anne Summers and I am going to die.

_(In here. Watch what you're doing with those things!)_

Well, everyone dies sooner or later, but for me it's going to be sooner rather than later, and I know I won't go in a nice quiet non-painful kind of a way.

_**(If we're too late you're gonna reap the whirlwind, Deadboy.)**_

Oh no, I'll probably go face-down in a ditch or drowning in my own blood or something.

_(BUFFY! Oh, God!)_

Whatever way I go it'll be violent, it'll be bloody, and it'll be painful.

_**(Oh Hell, she's not breathing... we've gotta do CPR...)**_

And if you're wondering why I'm so certain about that, it's because I am the Slayer.

_(You will have to do it, Alexander. I am unable.)_

Trust me on this; being a 'Chosen One' isn't good news because it means all sorts of things you thought only existed inside the heads of demented Hollywood movie producers want to eat your face, soul, blood, heart, brains, or whatever important bit of you's the flavor of the week.

_**(Well how the hell are you talking then?)**_

It's a good thing I get to be as fast as something really fast, strong as a very strong thing and really good at the whole healing thing as part of the deal.

_(... what's that got to do with anything?)_

And it's a good thing I've got Rupert Giles too.

_**(It's about breathing for her you idiot walking corpse!)**_

Giles is my Watcher, that means he's who I go to when I need to know how to slay something, and he watches out for me.

_**(Well?)**_

He also trains me in how to kick ass more thoroughly, and even though he's all tweedy and English and balding and librarian-y and such, he is insanely good with his fists and I really do mean insanely.

_(... I don't know how to do this see-pee-arr thingy. Satisfied?)_

I mean, I'm the Slayer, right – I am a lot faster and stronger and tougher than normal people – and he still holds his own when I'm sparring with him, to the point that he wins half our spars and in the beginning he could put me on my butt every time.

_**(No, because I've only got half an idea.)**_

I think he's got training and lots of it, and I'm glad, because it means I'll probably live longer.

_**(Oh hell... how did it...?)**_

How many teenage girls have their wills written anyway?

_**(Dammit, memory! Do your stuff!)**_

I have, because I'm the Slayer, the one girl in all the world chosen to fight the things people aren't supposed to believe exist.

_**(That's it!)**_

Vampires, demons, monsters – it all sort of blurs together in this mad drift of blood and dust and dirt.

_(Alexander, have you no shame?)_

I'd be the first to admit it's a rush when the adrenaline's pumping and there's this vampire snarling in my face and I've got my fist wrapped round a stake and WHACK and the vampire burst in dust and smoke.

_**(Shut the hell up or I'll dust you, Deadboy!)**_

It's a rush when I see the sun come up and I know I'm the reason the world's still turning round.

_**(C'mon, Buff, breathe, dammit!)**_

It's a rush, and it scares me.

_**(Breathe!)**_

It's all been kinda like some sort of crazy dream ever since Merrick walked up and handed me a stake, but I don't think I'd swap it for anything in the whole world.

_**(Please, Buffy...)**_

Well, apart maybe for Mom and Dad being on speaking terms and vampires that dusted easier, that is, and that scares me, y'know?

_**(Please breathe...)**_

Because I know I'd be lost without my friends.

_(She's gone, Alexander.)_

A hundred Godawful raging insane blood-soaked punch-drunk broken-knuckled stab-wounded blood-drooling nights are proof enough of that.

_**(The Hell she is!)**_

Time and time again I've been staggering down the street only just able to walk, the world turning into this sort of smear, and if it wasn't for my friends I'd have died like that time and time again.

_(I'm telling you, Alexander...)_

Friends; I've heard Slayers aren't supposed to have friends, and whoever invented that idea needs their head examined because I can't imagine how things would have happened without Xander and, you know, I don't want to because it sounds kinda dead-ish.

_**(Shut the hell up!)**_

Xander's sort of my best friend only I kinda got him as a friend because I wasn't there in time to stop this skanky vampire called Darla vampiring his best friend Jesse and I still think that makes me a kinda crap superhero, right?

_**(Stay with me, Buffy!)**_

I mean, aren't superheroes supposed to always save the day?

_**(C'mon, breathe, please breathe...)**_

Trust me on this, it's not like that in the real world, sometimes you'll try your best and you'll struggle like crazy to get there in time and when you manage it'll already be too late and then you've got to tell someone their friend is dead.

_**(Stay alive, Buffy!)**_

Sometimes you'll fight like a mad thing and you'll still end up face-down in a puddle waiting for someone to come save you.

_(I don't know what you think you're doing, Alexander, but...)_

Sometimes the only thing between you and a horrible end will be your friends, and I hope to God for your sake that if you're ever in that situation you'll have a friend like Xander Harris.

_**(For the last time, shut up!)**_

He's my anchor, my rock in the storm, and I don't know how it happened so fast, but he's always there for me, he's picked me up and patched me back together over and over again, and I'm scared of what'll happen if I ever lose him because if that happens I don't think I'll be able to go on any more.

_**(Live for me, Buffy!)**_

I can't count the number of times Xander's stuck me back together with Superglue and liquor and band-aids and I've been fine in the morning.

_**(Please...)**_

He says he learned what he calls 'makeshift battlefield medicine' from his uncle after the first time I got really beat up in Sunnydale.

_**(Stay with me...)**_

Apparently his uncle learned it in Vietnam and it's the first time I've been kinda glad someone was in Vietnam because I don't think I'd have made it this far without Xander's magic sticky-tape skills.

_**(Come on, come on!)**_

Just the other night he brought me back from the dead, and I'm not exaggerating about that. It was the whole face-down-in-the-water thing and Angel (my sort-of boyfriend) thinks I don't know it was Xander who resuscitated me but I know for sure Angel's breath doesn't taste of Twinkies and coke,

_**(Oh thank God, she's breathing again... c'mon, Buff, atta girl...)**_

And I'm not sure if I should be wishing Angel knew I know or not because he's been a bit smug around Xander ever since I thought it was Angel when I was on the edge before I realized what it had tasted like but I know how Xander feels about me and I don't want to hurt him but I don't want to risk losing him because he's the only reason I'm still alive and I don't know what to do.

_(... remarkable.)_

He's always ready with whatever I need even when I don't know I need it whether it's a silly joke to get me to smile again or bandages or just someone who'll hold my hand when I'm twitching and freaking out and I can't afford to lose him over some silly boy-girl thing.

"_... angel?"_

If anyone ever tells you being a superhero is easy, couldja please smack them for me?

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

AN: Written in US English as Buffy is American.

Thanks to the Caer Azkaban Yahoo group for aiding and abetting.

Doghead Out.


	8. 8: Freight Reiana's Story

**This ain't no self-insert fic.**

**This ain't no slash fic neither.**

**This is Top Dog – in brief.**

* * *

_Well if they'd free me from this prison,  
If that railroad train was mine  
I bet I'd move just a little further down the line  
Far from Folsom prison, that's where I want to stay  
And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.... _

* * *

Hundreds of miles from the megalopolis at the mouth of the River of Angels, across the Sea of Islands, it's springtime on the Plains of Death*.

All is silent and still as the first light of day brings a faint glow to the eastern horizon; it's another quiet morning for this sleepy Kendarat town.

Nothing moves; most nocturnal animals are back in their dens by now but the dawn chorus won't begin for another half hour and it's far too early for people to be out of their beds.

But what's this?

A sound in the distance like an approaching tornado, the blaze of lights at the bend in the river; something is coming from the west, racing through the fields out of the night like a great shadowy snake, chasing break of day at two hundred miles per hour with the force of a bunker-buster bomb, and the pre-dawn stillness is ripped away by the thunder of titanic methane-burning engines running flat-out.

The strident howl of a twin-tone air horn joins that bellowing roar as the metal behemoths come, wheels hammering across rail joints as racks of headlights and ditch lamps momentarily turn first light to midday – and then the six staggeringly massive locomotives are past, rattling windows and shaking the land as they stampede headlong into the coming day with a seemingly endless stream of wagons like warehouses on wheels pounding across the level crossing behind them – it goes on and on and on, wagon after wagon whipping past – then in a streak of red from the tail lamps the seventy-thousand-ton high-speed freight train is gone, and the silence returns.

Not for long though, the next train will be here soon; at any moment there are untold trillions of tons of freight racing across prairie and through glen, via tunnel and mountain pass and causeway, spreading and flowing like veins on the back of a hand, by ship and by truck, by plane and by train.

Wherever you go and whoever you are, there is one constant; the day the freight stops rolling is the day the galaxy dies.

Nothing can be allowed to stand in it's way; there are schedules to be kept and hungry bellies to be fed, fuel and ore and machine parts, chemicals and fresh fruit, livestock and electronics, ammunition and aid for the warriors on the front lines – every second of every day, come Hell and high water, the freight must roll.

On many worlds, there are steam locomotives at the heads of the trains that pour across the land in a stream without end; on others, internal-combustion rules the roost, and in some places electricity keeps that freight rolling.

Gauges range from vast to tiny; locomotives range from dinky toy-like things to titans like aircraft carriers on rails, but they all share one simple thing in common; come Hell and high water, they're here to make the freight roll.

Across half a galaxy it's a scene any railfan on Earth would know well; the air shaking to a heavy blast-pipe beat that said railfan would find immediately familiar.

Likewise, once the metal beast heaves into sight, exhaust barking like a machine gun, said railfan would have that same striking sense of familiarity; a parallel-sided boiler, smokebox above pistons at the front, straight smokestack, firebox in back – everything in it's place, down to the six-coupled driving wheels and the four pilot wheels leading the way.

Even the interior of her cab, with firebox doors, cutoff, reverser, water gauge and regulator all in their places, would prove instantly familiar – there's a brief strobe-like glimpse of her fireman slinging another shovelfull of fuel into her fire, and then she's gone on her way, rake of wagons clattering along behind her with that timeless slam of steel on steel, leaving only a pall of smoke and some soot on the lineside scenery to mark her passage; come Hell and high water, she's making the freight roll.

It is a sight that could be seen anywhere there is sapient life; steel wheels hammer across steel rails throughout the galaxy and beyond, hauling loads of any conceivable nature, from passengers to refrigerated foods to endless ton upon ton of lumber and ore to gallon after gallon of hydrocarbons.

Half of known space over, the locomotives that keep each planet's freight rolling are not made at home; they cross the gulf between star systems, and even galaxies, aboard cargo starships, and then spend multiple human lifetimes of relentless labour on their destination world before, at long last, finding themselves a quiet corner in which to rust away, their work done; they have played their part in ensuring that, come Hell and high water, the freight has rolled.

Of course, the question most often asked is, why?

Why does a galaxy crawling in technologies so advanced as to blur Clarke's third law use just so many smoke-belching grease-dripping huffing puffing metal monsters? And why does the galaxy depend on steel wheels on steel rails instead of something fancy like magnetic levitation?

The answer is of course price.

Steel? Cheap; where there is iron you can make steel, and iron is everywhere.

Stuff to burn? Cheap; where there is vegetation you can make fuel, and there is vegetation anywhere it's worth staying.

Manpower, the great failing of the steamer on Earth? Cheapest thing in the galaxy; everyone needs to earn their daily bread, and low pay is better than no pay.

Other, cleaner, more advanced rail technologies see use throughout the galaxy, on capital worlds and on industrialised planets, but that most basic of motive power, the solid-fuelled steam locomotive, outnumbers them to a truly staggering degree.

That chug is heard day in, day out, across innumerable worlds; blood and sweat and tears keep those fiery behemoths moving, ensuring that, come Hell and high water, the freight will roll.

On many capital or industrialised worlds, internal-combustion or electric motive power is king, but on others, worlds such as Rokolushu or Ryza, diesel and electricity is something that happens to other planets, swept aside by the iconic status of the smoke-belching brutes that have hammered across the rails since the dawn of galactic history; on many worlds, there are people without count who will gladly bleed to keep the fires burning in those ancient juggernauts.

Where there is fuel there is fire; where there is fire there is steam; and where there is steam, there is ton after ton without count of any freight one could possibly imagine pounding across desert and tundra, through mountain and valley, skirting oceans and cities, racing like an adrenaline-fuelled pulse through savannah and forest alike as it bears with it the life's blood of a galaxy.

Come Hell, come high water, come war and come famine, come what may, the freight must always roll.

And roll it does – ever onwards, stretching into infinity and beyond, crossing horizons without count, from the plains of North America to the rugged hills of Kronos, along the twisting rain-soaked R'hara'tath Railroad on the banks of the River of the Storm's Tears and down the arrow-straight thousand-mile stretches once mistaken by telescope for canals across Barsoom's red sands, from the towering tunnel-juggernauts of Frognorf to the pint-sized street-railways of Norkrondoo, through the forests of Azeroth Prime and the blasted wastes of Zarquon's Cursed Earth, the rails lead on down the ages in a long unbroken line; in the verdant jungles of Dachaigh Nuadh tank components thunder from fabrication plant to assembly building and in the mountains of northern Rokolushu the wood of the mighty Juraiain ship-trees races through gorge and across pass; the rails trace their way through the grim urban canyons of Nar Shaddar, on the wide-open tundra of Fenris, amongst the manufactoriums of Ryza, between the pyramids of Krynn and amidst the ash wastes of Necromunda, and even on desolate planets like Arrakis – across a hundred billion worlds, the iron horses never sleep...

... and, amid the pre-dawn darkness in a loveless house near the tracks in that little Kendarat town, tired eyes in a too-young face stare through cheap spectacles after that mighty beast of steel, and ears prick up to catch the distant wail of the horn at the next crossing as she dreams of the soon-to-come day that those endless shining rails will carry her away from the drunken rages, the throw crockery, the fights, the screaming, the beatings, the crying, and those horrific frozen silences – forever.

* * *

AN – Well, having been playing a heavily-modded version of Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe all week and having listened to substantial quantities of Johnny Cash, I got inspired. This one's for the iron horses and for anyone who's ever been desperate to escape a place that should be home.

The owner of those eyes will return, for all she's nobody important, will never do anything important, and is nobody you know; she's just a Kenti girl from a blighted family who, for different reasons, loves trains as much as I do and will talk about them with my voice a time or two; she's the Reiana mentioned in the title.

* - Formerly known as the Plains of Plenty and formerly the breadbasket of Kendarat, this rich arable region got it's current title after being the equivalent of either WW2-Normandy or WW1-Flanders and due to having hosted multiple Third Reich-style extermination camps. It's still the most sparsely-populated non-Arctic non-desert region on the planet as that's the sort of thing that gives Kenti superstition attacks.

** - Not an exaggeration. The impact of a 70,000-ton train moving at 200mph would equal over a hundred tons of TNT; seventy thousand tons is an immense train at any speed. At 200mph? The record-holder on Earth was 34,000-ton and wasn't exactly fast.

Kendarat's trains, excepting their mountain railways, aren't just Earther terms of big – they are built to the same hulking scale as everything else on that world, and run on track nearly three times the gauge we mostly use here on Earth. A Kenti main-line locomotive would dwarf the biggest we've ever built to the point of making it look like a toy; in fact, you could put two of a typical Earther loco in a Kendarat boxcar and they'd be able to rattle around.

(That said, they're not quite as obnoxiously massive as the equipment of the Mount K'rath'han Orbital Railroad)

They got that way due to the area Kendarat's worldwide railway network spread out from being open, flat, and not needing much in the way of earthworks, never mind tunnels or bridges, but needing to transport an utter fuckload of cargo per train; the mountain lines such as the R'hara'tath Railroad are smallish Earther sized due to the need for extensive rearrangement of scenery during their construction followed by something like, my GOD man, you can't regauge the River of Thunder, that'd be destruction of a priceless historic artefact! You might as well suggest turning Coronation Park into a landfill! Get your grubby paws off our heritage, you philistine!

And, yes, I am an unashamed train nut –right along with ships, aircraft, modern medicine and the Net, they're amongst the most impressive things that people take for granted.

Doghead Out.


End file.
